


cats are quite impervious to threats

by tosca1390



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas gives Marlee a kitten. Amusement ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cats are quite impervious to threats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> This is for Jordan. Because kitties. And she deserves the best. Which this may not be. But - kitties.

*

Marlee, alone in the White Zone, bends her head over her tablet. Her eyes are full of eighteenth-century classical music history; she thinks she can hear the familiar trills of _The Magic Flute_ in her head as she skims through its history, of Mozart’s strange life. It is a class she created herself, with Walker’s help; her interests expanding as the world allowed to her does. 

The blades of grass tickle her bare ankles and feet, warm from the spring sunshine. Sunshine seeps into her skin, through the soft fall of her hair against her neck. No ribbon holding it back today; she can’t decide whether she wants to wear them any longer. 

A tall shadow falls over her. “Hey, Marlee.”

Peering up, she finds Lucas Hunter standing over her. His dark head blots out the sun, his smile white against his skin. He holds his hands behind his back, an eyebrow cocked up. 

“Hello,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. She has spent very little time with any of the DarkRiver adults, though Keenan and Noor are friends, she thinks. And this – this is the alpha. “Toby and Sascha aren’t back yet.”

She waits for Toby when he’s with Sascha in the White Zone, because he’s asked her to; she is soothing for him, for his empathetic skills. He makes so few requests that she doesn’t mind it at all. Marlee likes outside, likes the smell of grass in his nose and the sounds of the animals in the nearby thick trees. Sometimes the young pups will lope around her, nip at her ankles; sometimes Ben will come play.

Ben is a strange weight in her middle, something she can’t place. 

“I know,” Lucas says, his face kind. The marks on his cheek soften with his smile. “I came to see you.”

“Why?” she asks, not rudely. No one ever asks to see her, except Ben; it is Toby and Sienna they want, and she understands why. She prefers her music class and to just be Marlee; anything else is too much right now. 

With natural feline grace, Lucas kneels on the grass in front of her. “DarkRiver has a gift for you.”

Now, she sets aside her tablet. “Why?” she asks with genuine curiosity. 

A slice of white teeth in a smile she thinks is mischievous as well as kind. “Does there have to be a reason?”

In the Net, she thinks, yes. Gifts are never truly gifts; there is an exchange of services, of good. “I have nothing for you.”

“Marlee, it’s a gift. You don’t need to give me anything,” he says with a laugh. 

He brings his hands out from behind his back. In the broad span of his cupped palms, a kitten sleeps. She is white as the clouds peeking over the tops of the trees, looks as soft. Marlee instinctively reaches for the kitten, and then pauses, flicking her gaze up to Lucas. 

“Go ahead,” he says, his tone fatherly. He is a good father, like hers, she thinks. 

“Oh,” she says, cupping her palms. The kitten shifts and all but spills from her smaller hands, and she brings it close to her breastbone, holding it steady. It is warm and vibrant under her touch, through the thin cotton of her t-shirt. “Oh,” she repeats, suddenly full of wonder, and looks up at Lucas. 

“Mercy found a litter of kittens in the city on her last patrol,” he says after a moment. “And we found homes for nearly all of them. I remember Toby and Keenan chatting about how you thought a pet would be nice, and so…” he trails off. His hand flinches at his side, as if stilling a reflex. 

“Thank you,” she says, voice thick. She reaches out to touch his wrist, now used to the changeling need for skin contact. She thinks she may be more changeling than anyone thinks; when Lara brushes and plaits her hair in the mornings, she is happiest. 

Lucas ruffles her hair, grinning. “I checked with your dad first, too. So it’s all good.”

“What is its sex?” she asks, peering back down at the white ball of fluff in her hands. 

“A girl. Weaned and everything. It’s a good responsibility to have at your age – ten?”

“Just about,” she says, smiling brightly at this alpha she barely knows. “You are very nice to think of me.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle. His hand lingers at the crown of her head. “You’re a good kid, Marlee.”

Toby and Sascha join them momentarily. Marlee, her tablet under one arm and the waking kitten in her hands, walks back to the den entrance with a wide smile, Toby at her elbow. They throw prospective names back and forth at each other, and for a brief moment, she glances back at the DarkRiver alpha couple. They are smiling, arms around each other, Sascha’s face in the crook of Lucas’s neck. That is how people belong to each other, Marlee thinks. Like that, like Dad and Lara, like Sienna and Hawke. 

One day, she might want that, too. 

*

The kitten is christened Snowball and takes to the den like a fish to water. She sleeps with Marlee on the pillow next to her and keeps her company when she does homework at the kitchen table. When Lara is home, Snowball likes to curl around her ankles and sit in her lap, which makes Lara laugh. Walker brings home string and jingle balls and builds a toy for Snowball, which delights Marlee and kitten both. 

Marlee keeps the kitten in their quarters at first, though. The den is a maze still even to her, and it’s so lovely to have something – someone – that belongs just to her. She wants to keep Snowball safe, keep her whole. Everything sometimes still seems so tenuous, so fragile, despite her father’s best efforts; the kitten is something solid even in its fragility, a constant. It sleeps on the pillow next to her every night, and meows her awake in the morning. There are little scratches on Marlee’s palms from playtime, and even those are a factual reminder of the life she lives now. 

Ben comes over to meet Snowball after two weeks, a little sheepish and awkward when she answers the door and lets him in. They have been stilted and strange with each other, hyper-aware of the strangeness of their connection. Well, she thinks it strange; she has never had the inkling of feeling something quite like this before, not even with her family. Ben thinks nothing of it, she imagines, what with the ease he says _you’re mine_. At seven! Marlee didn’t know what to say – she hardly ever has the right words when it comes to Ben. And so, they did not speak for weeks; the longest since the Laurens had come to SnowDancer. 

Now, they are back to a sort of normalcy. Still, she doesn’t know what to say. 

“A cat, huh?” he says, looking at it skeptically as it sits on the couch cushion, curled up into a snoozy ball of white fluff. 

“Yes. A pet,” she says, playing with the ends of her braids as they hang over her shoulders. 

He looks at her and then away, back at Snowball. “She’s cute.”

“Yes, she is,” she says with a bright smile, something she recognizes as pride. 

Ben’s bangs fall across his brow as he ducks his head a little. “I brought her something,” he mutters, thrusting out his closed fist towards Marlee. 

Instinctively she holds out her open palm. Two thick ribbons of emerald green fall from his hand to hers, one short and one long. She twines the lengths between her fingers, smiling slightly. She likes this color green. “Pretty,” she says, smiling. 

He grins a little, familiar and sharply white. “One’s for her, and one’s for you. For your hair, you know. So you match.”

A lump forms in her throat just slightly. “Oh?”

Scuffing his sneakered toe against the floor, he holds her gaze. “So everyone knows she’s yours.”

Words hang between them, too much for their age. She just smiles and takes his hand in hers, squeezes once. “Thank you,” she says, voice soft. 

Snowball likes the ribbon. She lets Marlee tie it lightly around her neck, and nuzzles her face into Marlee’s palm. 

*

Two months after receiving her, Marlee loses Snowball. 

Well, _lose_ may not be the right word. The front door to their quarters is left open, and Marlee is so focused on her homework at the kitchen table that she doesn’t even notice Snowball has trotted away into the corridors of the den until she _realizes_ it. She panics and finds Ben; they are partners-in-crime, after all. 

“She could be anywhere,” she exclaims to Ben as they race through the corridors.

Ben carries Snowball’s favorite jingle string in his hand, brow furrowed. “No one will let anything happen to her,” he says firmly, and Marlee believes him, except –

Except everything eventually leaves her, and why should Snowball be any different?

Marlee feels close to tears. They rest for a moment in the corridor towards the SnowDancer offices. She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. She can’t bear to tell her dad, tell Lara, tell Lucas about this; she feels like a failure. 

Ben’s hand rests lightly on her shoulder, warm through her t-shirt. She takes comfort in his touch; she always does. “You could try sensing her, right?”

She blinks and raises her gaze to him. “I don’t know that it works like that.”

He shrugs, gaze amber with his young wolf just under the surface. “I mean, I can smell her. She’s nearby. Maybe – “

Closing her eyes, Marlee stretches out telepathic sensors, trying to mimic the touch of her hands on Snowball. It’s an odd trick; but she catches something, something – 

“Further down –“ she says, just as there’s a great shout of surprise from the end of the corridor. 

“What the _hell_ – “

Marlee and Ben skid to a stop outside Hawke’s ajar office door. Heart beating, she knocks lightly, and the door swings open to reveal Hawke standing upright away from his desk, ice-blue gaze fixed on the small kitten prancing around the top of his desk, playing with a pen between its paws. 

“Oh,” she says, smiling despite herself. “Hi, Hawke.”

“Snowball, I presume,” Hawke says after a moment, voice and face grim. 

“She looks like your wolf, Hawke!” Ben pipes up. 

Brow furrowing deeply, Hawke stares at Snowball intently. “This is not a play area,” he says directly to the kitten, who does not stop playing with his pen. 

Swallowing a laugh, Marlee comes to collect Snowball. “I’m really sorry – “

“It’s fine,” Hawke mutters, brushing off his black suit trousers. “Come back from my damn meeting in the city and the cat just jumps on my lap – “

“That means she likes you,” Marlee offers, cuddling Snowball close to her chest. 

“Great,” Hawke says flatly, though his eyes are kind. “She’s cute, Marlee. Nice to see you smiling like that.”

Marlee flushes as she and Ben duck away. They wait until they are an appropriate distance away to start laughing, Snowball meowing plaintively in Marlee’s grasp. 

*

One day, Snowball ends up in Hawke’s closet. No one knows how. 

(Well, Sienna and Marlee might. But that’s their secret to tell.)

*


End file.
